Bel Aire, KS
Bel Aire, KS's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bel Aire lands at the 84th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 3,002 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bel Aire's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 79th percentile nationally.
Where Bel Aire's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 93.7% of Bel Aire's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 6.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Bel Aire against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Bel Aire's 84th national percentile and its 84th percentile inside Kansas, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bel Aire ranks 5,039 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,430 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 120 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Bel Aire's 84th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 93.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Bel Aire gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Bel Aire's 84th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Bel Aire, see the exposure-zones guide.